


Dreams in Color

by rowofstars



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Enchanted Forest, F/M, Fluff, Introspection, Light Angst, Spoilers, Spoilers for season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 23:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7733380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowofstars/pseuds/rowofstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loosely based on spoilers for OUAT season 6. Morpheus allows Belle to enter the world of dreams, and brings Rumple along as well. He tells them they will see her happiest memory and Rumple is surprised by which one it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams in Color

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is. I saw spoilers and I started writing. Rumbelle Week happened, and here we are.

At first, they were nowhere.

Everything was black. Not like the color, exactly, but a vast emptiness, a void that stretched to infinity. It reminded him of his death, when he had stabbed his father and sacrificed himself only to be rewarded with what he assumed was eternal damnation in the vault. He ceased to be. He was there still, sort of, in and among the entities that had become the Dark One, formless and angry.

There was a strange peacefulness in this darkness though. It wrapped itself around him, held him, and there was unexpected comfort in that. He thought for a moment that perhaps he had died again, that this was the end. Maybe he was simply consciousness now, floating in the ether.

But that wasn’t so.

He remembered. Hades, the Underworld, Belle. Morpheus had been quite the unexpected twist, yet here they were. Or weren’t. He was still unsure on that part and it bothered him. Belle was still in the box, wasn’t she? She had been at least when Morpheus showed up. Perhaps the God of Dreams could undo a sleeping curse, for a price.

He binked, or at least he thought he did. He felt it. The black was somehow less, but he couldn’t see. Not that there was anything _to_ see, but -

It changed.

Everything had an eerie, hazy sort of quality to it with an odd blue tint, like a foggy summer morning when the air is thick and heavy. But there was no humidity to stick to his skin or dampen his clothes. His eyes shut and then opened, squinting into the harsh new light. She shimmered into being in front of him in a faint gold glow, far enough away that he couldn’t touch. He could only look where she was or what she was also looking at, everything else was blurred and shifted in a way that made his stomach lurch if he tried to focus for too long.

After a few moments everything changed again. A familiar purple smoke rose up around them, but it too shifted, becoming lighter and thinner, different colors swirling together: lilac, lavender, and then finally a creamy white. Magic prickled along his skin, raising goosebumps as the space around him moved, like ripples on a pond flowing outward from where she stood. He closed his eyes and felt his own magic close to the surface. It made him hot and itchy as he resisted the urge to call on it. It would do him no good here. This was not a normal realm.

There was a brief but very bright yellow glow, and then things coalesced into an all too familiar setting.

He looked down and was shocked to see his skin scaled and faintly sparkly, with a sickly green hue. His nails were longer, blackened and clawed. His clothing had also returned to their cursed state. The deep blue silk shirt was not one he wore often in their world, but in hindsight she had always seemed to pay a little more attention to him when he did. Of course he’d denied such a thing at the time, never believing that happiness could be a possibility for him, much less with someone like her.

The leather pants felt the strangest to him, creaking as he stepped forward, but were soon drowned out by the sharp clack of his boots. Everything, the walls, the stone, the tapestries; it was the same. She was standing on the balcony that overlooked the garden, the skirt of her light blue dress billowed out behind her as she leaned forward on the railing. There was a knit shawl in varying shades of green draped over her shoulders. He’d made it for her and then magicked it into her wardrobe for her to stumble upon on one of the chillier days.

For a brief moment he wondered if somehow they were back, if it had all never happened; the curse, Storybrooke, Neverland. A part of him wanted it to be so, to have that chance to go back and start over again. He wouldn’t push her away this time. He’d be honest. He’d -

The world went out of focus again, and he shut his eyes, looking away for a second. A cool sensation washed over him, and then he opened his eyes. Belle was still standing there, looking as beautiful as ever in the dreamy light.

Rumplestiltskin came up behind her and stopped. Even the landscape was perfect, with only a few small patches of snow left on the mountains. The garden below was turning green and he knew that below them there would be the tiniest shoots poking through the dark earth. The air felt like it might be early spring and his throat tightened. If the Great Hall existed on the floor below them, there would be a heavy curtain lying on the floor in a heap.

The exact day had been recreated perfectly.

“Do you remember?” Belle asked as she straightened and pulled the shawl tighter around her.

He frowned. “I thought we were supposed to end up in your happiest memory?”

She looked over her shoulder and smiled before turning back to the landscape. “We are.”

He frowned. “But -”

There were so many other memories, many that they had together, and yet this was where she chose to be?

She sighed. “This was the day I realized I loved you.”

He smiled, but it was tight and forced, the ache in his throat making it hard to breathe. “But - there’s so much more,” he said.

“So many other memories,” she replied, nodding. “But what good are they if we didn’t have this one?”

At that Rumplestiltskin sighed and stepped as close as he dared, the longing to be near his wife almost overwhelming. When she leaned back against his chest, he put his arms around her waist and pulled her to him. Her hair brushed his face and he dipped his head, nuzzling the dark waves and breathing her in.

Belle made a small noise and laid her arms and hands over his, letting him know that this contact was more than welcome. It was strange how much she did miss this old version of them, and she wondered what it would be like to go back to the Enchanted Forest now. Would Rumple look the same? Would he have the same darkness twisting his features? But more importantly, what of their child?

“You like this shirt?” he asked. It was a strange question for the situation, but he felt compelled to know why she had dressed him in it.

“I do.”

He could hear the smile in her voice and grinned. “I’ll remember that.”

Her lips twitched in amusement. “You should.”

After a few moments of watching the landscape with its odd ripples and shifts, he spoke again.

“I made this for you, you know. The dress, the shawl.”

By hand, he didn’t say. He spun the thread and yarn, searched numerous markets for a fabric that would match her eyes, and spent more time turning his tower into a tailor’s shop than a wizard’s laboratory. All because the beauty had bewitched him.

“I know,” she said. “I always knew despite your insistence that the castle was just moving things around to make me more comfortable.”

He frowned. “Apparently I was far less secretive than I imagined myself to be, and my maid was far too smart for her own good.”

She laughed lightly, and he felt the shake of her body against his.

“For _your_ own good,” she corrected.

He sighed again. “Quite.”

They watched quietly as the garden changed before their eyes. It blurred and then cleared, the green and brown mix of early spring replaced with bountiful flowers in a sea of reds and pinks, yellows and purples. Climbing vines curled up and over the white arbor that covered a small bench. She had spent almost as many hours on that bench reading as she had the sofa in her library. And he had spent entirely too much time hiding in the shadows of this balcony watching her. 

He wondered if she had known he did that for her too, that in all the other years he’d existed here the land was barren and hard. But she had brought light and _life_ back to him.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She heard the catch in his voice and closed her eyes. “I know. It’s alright.”

“You deserved better than a monster,” he said, louder this time. “You still do.”

“Stop it,” she replied, giving his hand a squeeze. Then she looked back again, over her shoulder, and he had to lean his head back to avoid a mouth full of her hair. She smirked. “You know better than that, Rumple.”

Her arched eyebrow made him sigh. “I do,” he said with a small nod. “‘No one decides your fate except you.’”

She hummed and he felt the pressure of her body leaning back against him, trusting him to hold her up. Her hand took his and laid it over the slight swell of her abdomen, over the spot where their child was growing. It was far too early for her to be showing, but she felt the changes already, the new full, heavy feeling in her womb. She welcomed it, whatever the future was. This child came from True Love, and there could be nothing terrible in that.

They stood looking out over their dreamy kingdom, watching the odd shift of colors. He didn’t know how long they had here in her dreamed up little world, but it was peaceful and he would savor it as long as he could. Because these things always ended too soon for him.

“It will be time soon,” he said. Then he kissed the top of her head and tightened his arms around her.

She sighed and took a deep breath, lamenting that the dream world she conjured didn’t quite smell the same. “But not yet,” she replied. There was no sense of Morpheus’s presence yet, but she shivered anyway. “Just a little longer.”

Rumplestiltskin smiled and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. She turned a bit and kissed him softly but insistently, full of promise that when this latest obstacle was out of their way, there would be time for more, time for all things.


End file.
